Are you dreaming right now?
No? Are you sure?
How would you know if you were in a dream?
Our waking life feels so convincing that we rarely stop to question it. But dreams often feel equally real until we wake up. Cultivating the habit of questioning reality is key to achieving lucid dreams—those in which you are aware that you are dreaming. Here’s how to do it and why it works.
What Are Reality Checks?
Reality checks are small, simple tests you can perform to determine whether you’re dreaming. By practicing these checks during waking life, you train your mind to question the nature of reality. Over time, this habit transfers into your dreams, giving you the opportunity to recognise that you are dreaming.
A recent study by Peters, Erlacher, Rühl, and Schädlich (2024) combined external auditory stimuli with pre-sleep training on reality checks. Participants were exposed to a recording of the phrase “You are dreaming” during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, coupled with a pre-sleep routine that trained them to associate this phrase with performing reality checks. Just over 54% of participants reported experiencing a lucid dream following this method. The study suggests that auditory stimuli can serve as an effective trigger for lucidity.
But if you don’t have a sleep lab next door, you can cultivate these reality checks yourself by creating a habit. The trick is to take these checks seriously. A half-hearted check in waking life will translate to a missed opportunity in a dream. When you perform a reality check, give yourself at least 10 focused seconds to really wonder: Am I dreaming right now?
Dreams often trick us into believing they’re real. If you don’t cultivate this critical mindset while awake, your brain will convince you you’re not dreaming when you are asleep.
10 Common Reality Checks
Here are some of the most common reality checks you can use to question your state:
- Pinch your nose and try to breathe. Close your nose with your fingers. If you can still breathe, you’re dreaming.
- Look at your hands. Hands often appear distorted in dreams—extra fingers, unusual shapes, or textures.
- Push your finger through the palm of your other hand. In a dream, your finger will often pass right through your hand, if you try hard enough!
- Jump into the air. If you can float or fly, it’s a clear sign you’re dreaming.
- Read text twice. Read a book chapter, then look away and read it again. In dreams, text often changes or becomes nonsensical.
- Check the time. Look at a clock, then glance away and back again. Dream clocks tend to show distorted or shifting numbers.
- Turn on a light switch. Dream lighting doesn’t respond as expected. Flicking a switch in a dream might not turn on the light, or it might slowly dim it.
- Ask yourself how you got here. Dreams often skip logical sequences. If you can’t recall how you arrived where you are, you might be dreaming.
- Pay attention to small details. Objects, settings, and people in dreams often have subtle inconsistencies. Look for anything unusual.
- Use a dream-specific trigger. If you notice recurring symbols in your dreams, use them as personal reality check triggers. For example, one participant in a study I conducted reported frequently dreaming about buses. I suggested he perform a reality check whenever he saw a bus in waking life. Within days, he became lucid during a dream featuring a bus.
Tip: Conduct a reality check first thing in the morning. When people first start the lucid dreaming training, they often experience false awakenings—waking up inside another dream. If this happens, and you get into a habit of testing reality upon waking up, then you can trigger a lucid dream.
Personalising Reality Checks
Reality checks work best when they connect your waking and dreaming life. By recording your dreams in a diary, you’ll start noticing recurring themes, patterns, or symbols—what we call dream signs. These signs can act as cues for performing reality checks, bridging your conscious awareness across both states.
For instance, if you frequently dream of a specific object, like a bus, a cat, or a familiar location, practice questioning reality whenever you encounter these elements in your waking life. You are then more likely to remember to conduct a reality check when you encounter this element in a dream.
Why a Critical Mindset Matters
Dream characters and environments will often go out of their way to convince you that you’re not dreaming. In fact, your brain actively resists the realisation. That’s why a half-hearted, “Of course I’m awake” attitude won’t cut it.
The key is cultivating a critical mindset—a habit of truly questioning reality. You must rely on your senses, not assumptions. It might feel silly or unnecessary at first, but with practice, you’ll naturally carry this critical awareness into your dreams.
Now, Are You Ready to Question Reality?
Reality testing isn’t just a tool, it’s a lifestyle. By practicing it daily with focus and intention, you’ll train your mind to question reality both while awake and asleep. Practicing mindfulness can aid this process, as one begins to be more present and aware of the state they’re in at any moment. Stumbrys, Erlacher, and Malinowski (2015) found a positive correlation between lucidity in dreams and mindfulness during wakefulness.
Dreaming is a unique space where you can defy the rules of reality. Start questioning it now, and see where it takes you tonight.
Happy dreaming!